Friday

A Safe House for a Man (2000)

In Millerton, where I live, there is a house that is kept available for any local man who falls into a state of domestic disorder. It is called 'the Back House', because it is at the end of the road at the edge of the bush.

I have taken this idea to house the narrator of this poem; from a silent and separate place he looks into his own separation, and out at the world and the home he has left. Much of the information is from my own recent experiences.

The second shorter work uses one of our early scientific texts to convey a rather creepy sense of disparity between one age and an­other.

The third, a poem sequence, was written while my wife was sicken­ing with a terminal illness. The poems were hidden from her sight, and so well hidden that they were lost for several years.

It is only proper that this book be dedicated to Millerton and its inhabitants.

Art. xxxvi.—An introduction to the study and collection of the Araneidea in New Zealand. With a Description and Figures of Cambridgea fasciata, L. Koch, from Chatham Island; and also of a new species of Macrothele, Auss., M. huttonii, Cambr., found at Wellington, New Zealand. By the Rev. O.P. Cambridge, M.A., C.M.Z.S.

“Though many live a vagabond existence, and capture their prey by merely springing upon it, or running it fairly down in open view, yet craft and skill are equally apparent, whatever be their mode of life.”

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About the Editor

I've published five poetry collections: City of Strange Brunettes (1998), Chantal’s Book (2002), To Terezín (2007), Celanie (2012), and A Clearer View of the Hinterland (2014), as well as six books of fiction, most recently Kingdom of Alt (2010). I work as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University (ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3988-3926).